What Fracking Hath Wrought

Several recent stories dramatically underscore the fact that the revolution in oil and natural gas production is continuing to cause profound long-term economic and geopolitical effects.
The first piece reminds us anew of the Schumpeterian point that when technological innovation creates economic progress, there are winners -- typically, the entrepreneurs who advance or at least embrace that innovation -- and losers, including businesses that do things the old way. It is a WSJ report to the effect that while the oil and gas boom brought great rewards to smaller, more nimble companies such as Chesapeake Energy and EOG Resources, the really big oil companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell are struggling to catch up -- despite their much bigger revenues.
It turns out that the new technologies, which utilizes horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to exploit America's vast resources of oil and natural gas contained in our immense shale formations, is...(Read Full Article)